Two Arrested Protesting Fracking Wastewater Injection Well

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Two Youngstown, OH community members were arrested today at a nonviolent protest and rally at a fracking wastewater injection well site in Niles, OH. The two protesters were arrested for blocking trucks from entering the well site while holding a “Fracking Hurts Communities” banner. More than 50 people from Ohio and Pennsylvania attended the rally.

“The state of Ohio has refused to protect its communities from fracking,” said Chris Khumprakob, who was arrested during the protest. “Hydraulic fracturing is poisoning our community and endangering our health, so we’ve come together today as a community to symbolically cleanse our water and take a stand for our health. The state government won’t protect our well-being, so we’ve decided to protect it ourselves,”

Despite the harmful effects of injection wells, including poor air quality and contaminated drinking water, the state of Ohio has so far sided with fracking companies, according to members of FrackFree Mahoning Valley.

Fracking wastewater injection wells have been linked to many earthquakes, including a magnitude 4.0 earthquake in Youngstown on New Year’s Eve in 2011 and more than 11 subsequent earthquakes since the placement of injection wells in the area. Last year, Weathersfield Township and the City of Niles banned injection wells, but the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) still permitted this well. According to Ohio Revised Code, the ODNR has “sole and exclusive authority” to permit drilling operations in the state, regardless of what is agreed upon at the local municipal level.

“The Weathersfield Township trustees and Niles city council are attempting to protect the health and safety of our residents by banning injection wells, but the state of Ohio won’t listen to them,” said John Williams, a McDonald, OH resident that was arrested at the protest.

“This is just another example of the state government choosing corporate wealth over community health. We stand together with our city council to say that we do not want this toxic trespasser put in place.”

While Williams and Khumprakob blockaded the road leading to the well site, the rest of the protesters participated in a water blessing led by Reverend Monica Beasley-Martin.

“Clean water is essential for mankind’s continued survival,” said Rev. Beasley-Martin. “Like the Prophet Jeremiah before me, there is a burning fire, shut up in my bones, that compels me to speak out against this planned destruction of our water supply. We are not expendable!”

First, there’s no water. It’s a
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the earth. Soluble in formation hydrocarbons, it improves performance
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x schlumber employee

Yes but try to get this damn industry to use it , Dave…. It’s all about the money. Cheaper to destroy trillions of gallons of clean water, a resource we are runnning out of, and pump it down a hole in the ground where it can contaminate what clean water remains!!!!….Idiots is to mild a name to call those responsible!!!……

A more recent addition (2010) to the Superfund program’s national priorities list, the Gowanus Canal is
a murky, sewage-filled waterway that runs straight through the
population center of Brooklyn, N.Y. Although the canal has long been at
the center of environmental concerns, awareness recently ramped up after the construction of the Barclays Center (home of the Brooklyn Nets), which introduced excess stress on the surrounding sewage infrastructure.

The problems go beyond just sewage overflow, however. The canal is one of the nation’s most extensively contaminated water bodies,
containing everything from PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and
volatile organics. And yet, it is also still used by the public for
recreational activities and even fishing.

In January 2013, a dolphin that had inadvertently swum into the canal made headlines after it died while struggling to get out.

The EPA has proposed a seven-layered plan for cleaning up the Gowanus.
It begins with dredging through the sewage-lined canal bottom, and
follows with a series of “caps” to seal off the contaminated canal bed.

Linwe

Well done! Lots of love <3

MOMO

You should not be drilling in ohio! they have a good reason to protest